'NO! Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin's The Mummy' was Lee Cronin's response to the audiences coming out of advance screenings expecting it to be a continuation of that franchise. Yes, they are in development on that project, but it just got announced, and no official confirmation has happened yet. Somehow, a bunch of people going to watch this have no comprehension of how much time it takes to make a movie before putting it on the big screen. This is also a New Line/Warner Bros. feature, with no connection to the Universal monsters of it all, so they can do whatever they want with a concept, idea, or character because it's in the public domain.
With that said, this version of the mummy is directed by Lee Cronin, which is very much part of this movie's marketing. For those wondering who this director is, he is best known for directing the most recent Evil Dead Rise movie, which I have not seen. After watching this and learning that Sam Raimi is returning to the Evil Dead Franchise, I should consider watching it. In this adaptation of The Mummy, there are elements from several horror pieces, but does this new Mummy iteration live up to the horror?
Jason Blum and James Wan are very much producing this film, so there is a sense that it might not be the greatest horror film, but it could be another franchise starter or have some interesting aspects, regardless of a weak script. The premise revolves around an American family living in Cairo whose eldest daughter goes missing. Eight years later, after relocating back to New Mexico, they get a call stating that their lost daughter has been found and is alive, but she is not the same. She exhibits uncharacteristic behavior, which everyone downplays as a side effect of her being kidnapped and apparently entombed in a sarcophagus. Of course, there's more to it, not only leaning into Egyptian Mythology, which we come to expect with a 'Mummy' movie, but this time leaning into Egyptian demonology, which is what intrigued me as the plot moved along.
It does have a questionable script; there is no doubt on that, but with these very unrecognizable or non-grade-A actors, it is fair to say a lot of them do well enough with the opportunities given, despite even falling into the tropes of a horror disrupting the dynamic of a very innocent family. It does tackle some very interesting points about challenging family dynamics and the hard conversations that should be had in the case of what is happening between this family, but what does not work is how they tease a good conversation without actually having one in a realistic sense. There is only one very complex scene: the two lead parents, played by Jack Reynor and Laia Costa, have a confrontation in the middle of the movie that unearths internal turmoil they didn't know they were harboring toward each other. But that's it.
There is an ongoing separate storyline that does coincide with the family dealing with the return of the daughter, when an investigator formerly part of that long investigation, played by May Calamawy (who I loved in Marvel's Moon Knight), manages to hinder the horror, at the same time informing the mythology, and it works well. I do wonder if they could have been separate movies, but even then, would that work, given that these stories need each other but also incite a slight downfall? However, this storyline did make the script much darker than expected, speaking to Middle Eastern culture, including how they are perceived from a police perspective, as well as to the ideas of cults and how they establish themselves and keep themselves hidden in the Middle East, relating to the specific mythology they were focusing on here.
Another thing I enjoyed was that the choice to not only have Calamawy speak Arabic but a significant amount of the dialogue to feature this language was also a bold choice, something that even the Tom Cruise Mummy film didn't bother to feature, but with certain ideas and throughlines being explored here, it worked, and it made sense.
The horror was fun, but not overly filled with jump scares, which was something I had in my rearview mirror, considering that this was a film that would tackle more fantastical elements rather than full-blown, creepy-crawly supernatural elements. There are times when it does embrace the creepy-crawly, though nothing like what more iconic films have done, and those intentions were hard to miss. There are some criticisms of not only having a Mummy featured in this film. I might agree with this sentiment, but while watching the movie, you are distracted by so many other things. Looking back on it, it's hard to question why the movie is called The Mummy in the first place if you are perceiving it through a more face-value lens.
It is not the best horror movie, but it does include a lot of good things that can be considered fun and, at times, scary, especially with first-time actor Natalie Grace as the possessed Katie. Is this another franchise starter? I don't see it, considering that they do actually tie up several loose ends that were tackled and handled. There's this lack in the ending, with the choice of characters being happy enough while also traumatized, which speaks to how much someone can resolve an insolvable situation, especially at the lengths of supernatural ability, but ever since Weapons, there is gravitation to resolutions through vengeance, which is something I am not fully on board with and I hope we don't expect, especially in the horror genre, from this point forward.
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